Masquerade
by Lady Lucy AJ 4ever
Summary: 16 yr old Alanna of Trebond is the sole lady knight of Tusaine in the war against Tortall. She is captured as a prisoner of war, what will happen when she faces head to head with the heir of the Tortallan throne, Prince Jonathan of Conte?


A/N: Hey guys! Wassup? Yes, Lady Lucy's back and in business!!! Enjoy!  
  
*~*~*~*  
Masquerade  
  
Alanna fought furiously in the thick of battle. She had to admit; these Tortallans had guts, not much sense but guts. Their fighting skills weren't that bad either. But no one could be a worthy opponent for her; after all, she had been trained by the best swordsman at the Tusaine court.  
  
Alanna lashed out, swinging her sword in a fierce arch, going for the kill when another sword came out of nowhere, blocking her blade from striking the man at her mercy. She looked up in time to meet a pair of determined sapphire eyes. The young man was about her age; maybe a couple of years older than her with coal black hair and was extremely handsome. Alanna looked him over and snorted, another pretty face, she thought. He would be enough to make any lady's heart throb, but then again she wasn't what you would call, a lady.  
  
Alanna withdrew her sword from his block and parried as he swung his sword at her, leading Moonlight with her knees. She then went into her crescent moon drill, swinging her sword at lightning speed up and around. He blocked it at the last minute and forced her sword down. Alanna blocked with all her strength; he suddenly withdrew his sword and then came around with a side swing. She dodged sideways, just in time, a moment later and she would have been headless but the sword's tip had slightly made contact with her helmet. Knocking it off balance, it fell to the ground as her long copper curls came tumbling out from under it.  
  
The man was momentarily stunned, probably by the sight that she was a girl. Jerk she thought as she worked the moment to her advantage and sliding the sword up to his neck.  
  
Alanna smiled charmingly at him. He was a good swordsman she had to admit, one of the best she had ever met. The only reason she had won was because he was surprised. This wasn't a fair fight and it was such a pity to let a good swordsman go to waste. Alanna's eyes turned hard, glaring at the man, pondering if she should kill him or not.  
  
Suddenly his eyes widened as he looked behind her. Alanna didn't get time to turn around as striking pain wedged its way into her spine as the result of a sword making contact with her back and she blacked out.  
  
*~*~*~*  
'His gleaming sword's tip glanced off her helmet and knocked it off as she sat back on her horse. A cascade of luxurious copper locks tumbled out like a waterfall, surrounding her perfectly sculptured face and her beautiful violet eyes, sparkling with mischief. A girl? He couldn't believe his eyes, and one so young? He was just 18 and only achieved his knighthood less than a year back. This girl was merely 16 and here she was in the thick of battle. Since when did the Scanrans use females? He was temporarily distracted as he thought this over which just gave her enough time to slide her sword to his throat as she smiled flirtiously at him, somewhat teasingly. Although he was merely a couple of seconds away from death, he couldn't help but notice how beautiful she was. Suddenly her eyes turned to ice as he thought, this is it, I'm going to die, but at least it's honorable. Honorable? I'm being killed by a girl, that's supposed to be honorable? He braced himself, ready for the moment when her sword's tip would penetrate under his skin but nothing came. He looked back at her, her eyes were still hard but she seemed to be pondering something as she bit her lower lip. Why hadn't she killed him yet? He looked past her to one of the foot soldiers behind her holding his sword up read to strike. His eyes widened but it was too late as the soldier's sword slashed across her back and she blacked out, falling from her horse. The sound of blowing horns signified that Roger's men were here. As the hundreds of men poured into the clearing he was pushed back. He took one more look at the girl, in time to see the foot soldier putting her on her horse and probably dragging her to one of the cells as a prisoner of war.'  
  
Prince Jonathan of Conte flipped and turned in his bed, suddenly waking up with a cold sweat. It had been a week since the major attack on Fort Drell and the Tusaines had withdrawn a bit so king Roald had ordered Jon and some of the other knights (including Gary and Raoul) to come back to Corus.  
  
The scene with the girl knight kept on playing in his head, over and over again. Why couldn't he forget her? He forgot court ladies soon enough so why did she stick? Jonathan shook his head in frustration, sighed and got out of his bed and stepped onto the balcony of his room feeling a the cool night breeze blowing through his coal black hair, wiping away all his worries except for-  
  
Her  
  
Jon ran his hand through his hair, aggravatingly. He couldn't forget the fact that she had spared his life when she had the chance to kill him and now he didn't even know if she was dead or alive after that slash from the sword. He pondered this for a few minutes before finally deciding on visiting the dungeons first thing in the morning to see if she was there.  
  
*~*~*~*  
  
Jon dressed in plain brown breeches and a white cotton shirt with only a sapphire ring to signify his wealth. The dungeons were on the far side of the castle, half of them being underground. He walked past the main door to the dungeons, nodding to the sentry. Jon walked to the inner cells where a guard came scurrying up to him, bowing.  
  
"May I be of help highness?"  
  
"Yes, I am eh looking for a prisoner of war whom nearly killed me. Do you have the keys to the dungeons?"  
  
"Of course my liege. The prisoners are all here, if you'll only recognize which one it is"  
  
"Very well"  
  
Jon walked through the many corridors of the dungeons with the guard scurrying behind him. They were so dark that he nearly missed the girl crouching with her knees to her chest in the corner. If it weren't for her gleaming copper hair even in the dark, he would have missed her altogether.  
  
"Guard, please open the door and leave us"  
  
"Yes highness" the guard bowed and ran off  
  
Jon stepped into the cell as the girl lifted her head to look at him, wearing a scowl on her face. He smiled cheerfully at her trying to make a friendly impression. Unfortunately it wasn't working since she seemed to recognize him from the duel.  
  
"You" she spat  
  
"Yeah, it's me. Eh hi! I'm Jon, who are you?"  
  
She tried to stand up but failed collapsing again with a moan. Jon rushed over to her and helped her sit back down. He turned around a little bit, seeing the huge gash across her back, he whistled. It was hardly bandaged properly and she was loosing a lot of blood. If this kept on going, she would die surely. Jon frowned, he had to do something. He placed his hand carefully on the gash that practically reached from her shoulder to her hip and summoned his gift. She flinched against his touch  
  
"Get you're hands off me! What are you doing?" she hissed  
  
Jon sighed exasperatingly, "Keep still, I'm trying to heal you"  
  
When she didn't say anything, Jon looked at her; she was floating in and out of consciousness and was closely dangerous to dying. He had to do something or she really would die.  
  
"I'll come for you tonight" he whispered quietly into her ear so that no one apart from her could hear him. Jon finished his healing, laid her carefully against the wall and stepped out of the dungeon. He looked back at her to find her staring at him disbelief.  
  
*~*~*~*  
  
That night, after dinner, Jon crept out of his chambers and to the dungeons. He had spent most of the day perfecting a sleeping spell that would put anyone to sleep and wake not knowing a thing. He quickly put sent his gift to every guard and sentry on dungeon duty then crept quietly to the girl's (whom he still didn't know the name of) cell all the while remaining in the shadows unless someone who wasn't under the spell saw him.  
  
*~*~*~*  
  
Alanna winced at the pain in her back, she was very weak but if she were going to die, she would die honorably. She thought back to the early morning when the man with the sapphire eyes had came and released some of her pain, she remembered his last words; 'I'll come for you tonight'. Alanna snorted, you could never trust Tortallans, it was only a couple of candles to midnight and she doubted he would come.  
  
Suddenly the guard standing duty on her cell seemed to fall asleep. Alanna's nose twitched and she was sure it was off magic doing and sat up red alert. Something or someone moved in the shadows.  
  
"Whoever you are show yourself or court death" Alanna readied a fireball behind her back, putting most of her strength into it  
  
A chuckle came from the shadows but still did not show its face, "Well, to be frank my lady, you don't look in any physical shape to be making threats provided that you are still locked in the cell"  
  
Alanna smiled sweetly at him and immediately he got suspicious. Almost without warning, she looked as if to kill. "Whoever said it would be physical?" then threw the fireball into the darkness with all her strength, hoping to strike down whoever was in the shadows  
  
There was a gasp from the darkness then it was lit up by a blue flame as she saw the face of the man that had come this morning, standing there scowling.  
  
"What did you think you were doing, that thing missed me by half an inch, it could have killed me!"  
  
Alanna looked at him grimly, "That was the point"  
  
He rolled his eyes, "if I'd known you still had that much strength, I would never have come to rescue you"  
  
Alanna stared at him, confused as he unlocked the cell door. She tried to stand up yet again but her legs were numb with sitting on the hard floor all day and her back killed. He rushed over to her once more, with concern, which just made Alanna more confused.  
  
"Here, sit back down, you won't be able to stand up for a while. That fireball took most of you're strength didn't it? Sheesh, if that was so strong when you're this weak, I'd hate to see you at you're full strength"  
  
"And that you should"  
  
"It's no use, you're too weak to walk, I'm going to have to carry you" Jon put his arms under her body, careful not to touch her wounds and slowly lifted her up. To her surprise, she was as light as a feather  
  
"Put me down this instant buster or you're gonna regret it when I recover" Alanna protested and twisted and squirmed in his grip with the last of her strength then faded into unconsciousness.  
  
Jon looked at her limp body in his arms; she looked so serene so fragile that he was almost scared that he was going to break her. He carried her back through the hallways of the palace to his room; luckily n one saw him or he would have been in big trouble.  
  
He laid her down on his bed and decided to let her sleep until morning when he would try to heal her wounds. Jon took one more look at her, got changed and then crawled into an extra bed that he had ordered from a maid. Content to dream about a certain violet eyed, copper haired girl knight with a fiery temper to match.  
  
*~*~*~*  
  
So how'd you like this chapter? I'm trying to come up with new ideas that are different so I hoped this would be as enjoyable for you to read as it was for me to write. I promise you this will be interesting, next chapter you'll find out who Alanna really is. I'll try update as much as possible but I'm afraid I'm going to be a while because you know with holidays finishing and High school starting again, uhggg!  
  
By the way, I looking to start a new section in ff.net with Isobelle Carmody books so if anyone would like to join me, please review and tell me or email me at ladylucy16@hotmail.com, thank you!  
  
Lady Lucy A/J 4ever ^_^ 


End file.
